Propagating Eden: Uses and Techniques of Nature Printing in Botany and Art
April 03 - July 25, 2010
Glyndor Gallery
With Propagating Eden: Techniques of Nature Printing in Botany and Art, the International Print Center New York (IPCNY) and Wave Hill pay homage to the beauty of natural plant forms, pure and unadulterated, captured by artists and botanists past and present. Nature printing is a name given to the technique of taking impressions from the surface of an organic form, such as a leaf, flower, feather, skin, shell, bone, or mineral. The process is suggested by nature herself, in fossil remains that reveal evidence of the origins of life and clues to the pathways of evolution. The human impetus to create self-prints can be as simple as a child’s finger painting, and as poignant and poetic an assertion of one’s presence in the world as the stenciled, silhouetted outlines of human hands found in prehistoric cave paintings—both gestures seeming to declare: “I was here.”
Propagating Eden is concerned with nature printing as an illustrative tool used in the service of science, numismatics, and self-expression. The exhibition examines closely the process by which “faithful” reproductions from natural forms are printed, by what technical means and to what ends. The exhibition is not a historic survey but juxtaposes nature prints produced across disciplines—whether for highly specific botanical description or to incorporate natural forms for expressive effect. The works on view introduce the common ground among modes of representing objective reality, the invention and mastery of various printing techniques, and the imposition, intentional or not, of formal, aesthetic considerations.
Roderick Cave’s forthcoming book Impressions of Nature: A History of Nature Printing, has been very helpful to all of us in understanding the development and applications of nature printing throughout time. This work has been cited in the labels.
Exhibition Panel Discussion
May 23, 2010 at Wave Hill House
Join us for a lively panel discussion about Propagating Eden: Uses and Techniques of Nature Printing in Botany and Art. Michele Oka Doner, artist; Patricia Jonas, Director of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Library Services and Curator of the Florilegium Society; and Karen Reeds, scholar, talk about the history of nature printing and its allure for contemporary artists. Exhibition Curator Pari Stave will moderate the discussion. Free with admission to the grounds. Reservations recommended.
Tours
Weekly exhibition tours: Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12 NOON, Saturdays at 2PM
Gallery Hours: Tuesdays – Sundays, 10AM – 4:30PM
Thank you to the artists who lent their work to the exhibition as well as Timothy Baum, New York, NY; Ruby Beets, Sag Harbor, NY; Edition Jacob Samuel, Santa Monica, CA; GV Art, London, UK; Donald Heald, New York, NY; Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY; Hans P. Kraus, Jr., New York, NY; Anthony E. Nicholas, The Lapis Press, Culver City, CA; Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY; Kiki Smith, New York, NY; The Buhl Collection, New York, NY; Universal Limited Art Editions, Inc., Bay Shore, NY; Wildwood Press, LLC, St. Louis, MO; Mixografia®, Los Angeles, CA; and to private collectors.
Propagating Eden is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Reed Foundation, and the Arthur Ross Foundation. Support for Wave Hill's Visual Arts Program is provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc., Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts-a state agency. Sustaining support for Wave Hill is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.